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The major change in CAMTECO’s organization is the creation of several committees that will focus on all aspects of the only telephone cooperative in the country. The present organization is patterned after a simple consumer cooperative. The coop should be organized like PLDT or Globe. See the Proposed Committees – Tasks and Responsibilities.

The director’s position require special knowledge like Asset Management, Revenue Sharing, Technical Assets, etc. The next major change is requiring those who want to run for position as director must undergo series of trainings and seminars.

The General Assembly meeting will be held on Saturday, April 14, 2018 starting at 1:00 p.m. at the Provincial Convention Center. Encourage CAMTECO members to attend.

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A pronouncement was made in public that “CAMTECO will die its natural death”. It’s true it’s financially sinking but it’s not totally bankrupt. CAMTECO still has technical assets like towers around the island, cables and poles. The Board with a new management tapped an experienced Telecom Consultant to setup the Engineering and Development division tasked to improve its present services and to develop new technologies. One of his recommendation is to setup a LOCAL CELLPHONE NETWORK around Camiguin. The SIM is CAMTECO, the cellphone number is 387xxx, it’s a local call to call CAMTECO landline to CAMTECO cellphone (and vice-versa). With towers already in place around the island, deadspots (from giant cellphone operators) will be covered – even Itum and Mt Hibok-hibok will eventually have a phone service.

There is P20-M worth of shares-of-stocks on sale to finance its recover, upgrading of the present system and for the setup of the cellphone network. If you can’t buy PLDT shares? Why not investigate if there’s a potential with CAMTECO? Call the office. Read the Consultants Report for more details of the plan.

The 2018 Annual General Assembly meeting will be held at the Provincial Convention Center, Capitol Hills, Pandan, Mambajao, Camiguin on April 14, 2018 at 1-5 p.m. Be there and encourage other members to attend.

With both technical and intellectual assets of CAMTECO, will it die a natural death? Only the people who lack vision will say so. But to the words of King Solomon “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Prov 29:18)

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The General Assembly meeting is reset to May 7, 2017. Many members no longer care to attend the meeting because of discouragement. I have a letter to the members to reveal something that should have been known when CAMTECO started. The pages 2-3 is critical. It involve HUGE amount of asset. It will surely move them to action. If you care about them, it will really help much if you can share this letter with them.

To give you the highlights of my letter …

Update on the restoration of Tupsan area. I installed a new system with zero investment on the part of CAMTECO: no downpayment, no payment if it doesn’t work, staggered payment from the revenue of Tupsan for 18 months. The new system works and ready for the restoration of Guinsiliban, Sagay and Lawigan (120+ lines).

A revelation most members do not know – that their membership is worth at least P125,000 when the project started in 1994.

CAMTECO can enter into cellphone service in Camiguin and Misamis Oriental (Balingasag to Magsaysay) using the same system installed for Tupsan. We can develop and setup the cellphone system by ourselves.

Recommended changes that should be ratified (pass into motion and duly seconded) in the General Assembly to include:

Re-organization of the Board and Management that include giving specific assignments to directors by creation of various committees – for example, New Projects and Planning to handle the development of the cellphone system; Marketing and Sales to study the reduction of phone rates to be competitive; Operations to focus on restoring availability of service 99.999% (only 5 minutes downtime in one year); Human Resources which include conducting seminars about telecommunication.

Acceptance of new class of members that allow business owners, banks (Land Bank, PNB, etc. so that there will be fresh bodies young and energetic that can do the above tasks

The par value of the coop shares must adjusted to reflect the true financial health of the coop. For example – when CAMTECO invested P4-M (the net revenue in 1994 and 1995) to expand the network in 1996, the P4-M should have been distributed among coop shares. Do the math for 400 members (x 5 shares each = 2,000 total shares). The par value should have been appreciated from P800 to P2,800!!!

Every member should have known the last one. CAMTECO has a very bright future – but it needs action and participation from every member. When properly run, CAMTECO members is like owning stocks in PLDT!

So, download this ready-to-print file. Read it even the first 3 pages only. After reading, if you believe CAMTECO can rise again, then make hard copies and share it to at least 2 members who do not have access to this blog. Just click this link to read/download. Letter-CAMTECO_Members_Gen_Assy_Rev_C

Sincerely,

Nandy Dagondon

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Stay in focus. This is one key to succeed in business. I think CAMTECO ignored this wisdom by entering into cable tv business – directly competing with Island Cable. Opposition to CAMTECO’s application with NTC is expected. To date, CAMTECO were granted the permit to operate in Guinsiliban only. Catarman and Sagay remains contested between the two proponents at NTC. Frequent expensive travels to attend hearings in Manila and expensive legal fees are too much for an ailing coop.

Think global. Instead of competing head-on with the existing operator, why not expand CAMTECO’s horizon? Why not go global on voice communication? Although there’s Skype, Viber, Facebook, etc. there are people who still prefer a simple telephone – just make it almost free. With Internet technology this scenario is possible. Now read this line slowly:

Camiguingnons abroad can become a CAMTECO subscriber. What does it mean? Those who are abroad can make local calls to CAMTECO subscribers andvice-versa.

What’s needed abroad?

Internet connection which everybody has

An ordinary telephone

An analog telephone adaptor (ATA) which can be bought online

Coop membership

Just add a Telephone Adapter and an ordinary Analog Phone

The setup is very simple as shown here.

What are the recurring cost?

CAMTECO monthly subscription

Reduced per-minute call like 10-25 centavos per minute

If you’re from Camiguin, do you like this service?

If you’re a CAMTECO coop member, which will bring more revenue to the ailing coop? From a few towns or worldwide? Very obvious. But the big question is – will officers and management consider this avenue?

By making wireless landline affordable to the public, it means more additional subscribers. More subscribers means more calls (traffic) which results to more revenue.

Quick activation of service – all it takes is an ordinary cellphone plus a CAMTECO SIM

Text messaging among CAMTECO cellphone users. The key – CAMTECO must offer very low SMS rates compared to Globe, Smart and Sun like 0.25 per regular text message or 1 week unlimited text for only P5.00. It needs marketing strategy.

Wireless can serve areas unreacheable or too costly to install via cable like Itum. There are many potential subscribers there who can afford to pay for the phone and Internet services like OFW homes, retirees and foreigners.

Eastern Misamis Oriental where CAMTECO has a franchise (from Balingasag eastward) can be served. Thousands more voice and text message subscribers.

With the latest in radio technology, the cost of putting up a cellsite dropped to only 10% than 10 years ago. It is now within the reach of CAMTECOs finances to put up a cellphone network.

Finally, add VoIP (aka Internet telephony). With this technology it’s possible that CAMTECO phone service can be extended anywhere in the world via Internet! For example, a Camiguingnon in London can place a local call to Camiguin. This kind of service is exactly the same offered by Vonage USA.

With these future services and technologies in place, CAMTECO will regain back portion of the lost revenue stream to cellphones and dramatically increase revenue by multiplying subscriber base (quick and cheap) with more services.

By the way, the author submitted a formal proposal to CAMTECO (Camiguin Telephone Cooperative) for a joint project. If this system works, CAMTECO can offer this system to private telephone operators all over the Philippines.

Please share this opportunity to any CAMTECO member. They’ll be benefited from better services and more dividends and patronage refund.

Small telephone operators except CAMTECO (Camiguin Telephone Cooperative) are affected by cellphone and Internet. But CAMTECO is in a better revenue position because of the local metering. CAMTECO has a better chance of survival.

Now comes the Internet – this time it’s the overseas calls. Another blow due to email, voice/video chat and VoIP (simply means Internet telephony like Skype, Viber, etc.). Will jumping to VoIP beneficial to the small operators?

Without going into detailed research like world market demands, market share, etc. – just follow what big Philippine telcos are doing:

convergence of technologies: voice and data

inter-connection via VoIP

Convergence

By merging phone calls and Internet into one infra-structure:

one cable – from CAMTECO to subscribers

one radio/fiber-optic – among all stations around the island

equipment that carry both information in all stations

huge savings is possible. If PLDT is migrating to VoIP, it should be the way to go.

Another major advantage of upgrading to VoIP – virtually unlimited capacity of the system to add subscribers. In contrast to the current system, to expand the system it must be byblocks of thousand lines. The initial investment is huge.

With VoIP, CAMTECO can expand in very small increments – as few as 24 lines! With virtually unlimited capacity plus hundreds of calls in one time (One system is limited only to 24 connections), CAMTECO can restructure the local metering rate to encourage more calls to hundreds. More calls means higher revenue.

Overseas calls

Another problem, how to regain lost revenue from overseas calls. Only one solution – focus on Internet connection. With higher monthly fee, CAMTECO prefer Internet subscription although it means losing the revenue share from incoming overseas calls (which is small anyway – the big chunk goes to PLDT). But Internet will only appeal to the young generation not to the parents. The popular concept of Internet means – PC/laptop is required. This is wrong! An Internet connection can carry any information – text, photos, audio and many more.

If audio or voice is the only interest, no PC/laptop is needed. Just plug any of these to the modem: